One of the things I brought back from Gencon was this book by Jonny Nexus, Gamenight. Just a regular novel, albeit an independently published one. I’m normally not looking for fiction at a gaming convention (there are other places for that), but this particular book ended up in my possession in a special way: Gregor Hutton, a rpg designer and acquaintance, recommended the book and all but insisted that we should visit the author’s booth. (We = me and my brothers) The booth was the first time I heard about the novel; as I understand it, the idea was for us to check if we’d like to retail the book here in Finland. Fiction is not really our line of business, but the author graciously gifted us with a copy of the book anyway. He even signed it. That’s happened to me a couple of times with roleplaying games, but it did surprise me here, as I didn’t know off-hand what to do with the book and why he gave it to us with no expectation of recompense.

Be that as it may, I did feel a bit responsible for having received the book without paying for it, even if it was a gift. As far as I knew, there might have been some sort of social expectation of reciprocation that I didn’t catch. So instead of just forgetting about the book I decided that I might as well review it here at my blog; the review is not very positive, but I think it does give an honest picture of the book for those who are looking for this sort of thing. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, so both Jukka and Sami raised the question earlier, so I feel compelled to outline it in some greater length. That question is, of course, whether rpg illustrations debase women and how come that’s so. The matter has been extensively dealt with by many writers, some of them women (which might certainly give them some more leverage in complaining, if being offended justifies an argument). Read the rest of this entry »

OK, I’m going back to the topic from last month, which I chose and choose to frame in personal terms: I don’t like the kind of fantasy modern fantasy adventure roleplaying games like D&D and Exalted seem to offer nowadays. This being a personal opinion does not, of course, preclude looking for reasons and values behind the opinion. Read the rest of this entry »